Testing Unreleased Songs In Ads
Use multi-song test campaigns to gather real data on unreleased tracks by running ads with different creatives. This helps decide release order, content creation priorities, and budget allocation based on actual performance metrics.
By Andrew Southworth
Hey friends!
Today we’re going to talk about how you can test unreleased songs in ads. Imagine you’re sitting on 4 unreleased songs with via content for each one - how do you decide which to release first, or which to save for the album, or which to go film new content for etc?
Of course you can release your music in the way that is the most artistically sound for your music, but release cadence and packaging is often more of a business / marketing call than an artistic call.
I like to create what I call a ‘multi-song test campaign’. It’s almost identical to how you run a regular release campaign so i’ll walk you through it.
But first, we have a sponsor today:
Business news as it should be.
Each morning, it breaks down the biggest stories in business, tech, and finance with a touch of wit to keep things smart and interesting.
*note, i’ve been subscribed to Morning Brew for over a year now, it’s a great way to get caught up with the news each morning in only a couple minutes. Plus, it’s free!
Multi-song test campaign
A multi-song test campaign is basically just a campaign with multiple songs in it that you want to test. Sometimes I do this for released music (if you want to find the winning song in an artists catalog), but here we’re talking about using it for unreleased music.
There are a few ways to set this up, here’s one:
Ignore the first ad set with 1 ad in it. You can see the 2nd ad set has 13 ads in it, these are videos for 4 different songs. All we’ve done is run a campaign using ad creatives for 4 different songs in each ad set.
Sometimes i’ll use ad set budget optimization and put different songs in different ad sets, sometimes you run different campaigns for each song. All of those setups work, and they’re really a matter of preference.
But where do we send people? The music isn’t out yet, so there isn’t a destination. I just sent them either to the artist profile, or a playlist with all the artist’s music on it.
While this is kind of misleading because we got people to click on an ad that doesn’t go where they think it’s going, nobody has ever complained. Most people start listening to your music and as long as the other songs are good they don’t even realize they didn’t go to the specific song they heard in the ad, or they assume it was an honest mistake.
You’re not running this campaign for long either, often only for a week or so to get data. It might only be like $150-$300 in ad spend depending on how many ads you have.
What you’re after, is the cost per conversion data on the individual songs and ad creatives.
That’s actual data for how these songs performed. We can tell we have 3 ads that are great performers, and 3 ads that are poor performers. Then of course, a bunch in the middle.
With this data we decided the order we would release these songs, we figured out which songs we would film new content for for ad creatives, and we set our budget expectations for each song as well.
Reddit AMA
On Wednesday November 5th we’re doing a Reddit AMA on R/MusicMarketing! Check it out here.
You can go there now to submit your questions, and Dustin Boyer, Matt Bacon, Jesse Cannon and myself will answer as many as we possibly can! This is a great chance to get free advice from multiple people who have worked with thousands of artists on their marketing.
It’ll also be fun! Big thanks if you go and participate.
Whenever you’re ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:
My courses. Spotify Growth Machine teaches you how to use Facebook ads to promote your music on Spotify. YouTube Growth Machine teaches you how to grow a YouTube channel organically and how to use YouTube ads. Fan Growth Machine teaches you how to build a website, online store and grow your email list.
My ad agency Southworth Media specializes in running Meta conversion ads to promote your music on streaming platforms, email list growth, tour promotion and more.
Website / Store / Funnels. MusicFunnels and FanFunnels are the best all-in-one platforms for music artists to make a website, online store, sales funnels, build a mailing list and more!
1-on-1 consulting. You can book 1-hour calls with myself or my team here.
New Content
Instead of Spotify fixing the bot problem on their platform, they're just fining artists, labels and distributors.
Spotify has announced they're developing artist-first AI music products, and musicians are worried what this might mean.
In this episode I talk with Goshfather about how he went from almost quitting music to 50k monthly listeners, playing EDC, being an Insomniac radio host and more in under 2 years.
My Links:
🌍 MusicFunnels - Best website / store / funnels for music artists (get your 14-day FREE trial!)
🧑💻 Consultations
🎬 Get 15% off Melodist music distribution with code ANDREW15 here
Discount / Affiliate Links:
►► FeatureFM - use code ASOUTH30 for 30% off annual plans!
If you’d rather just purchase the e-book, or physical book or audiobook you can do so here.
I hope you enjoyed this edition of Music Marketing Monday! Please give your feedback using the poll below.
** There are affiliate links on this site, meaning I may receive a kickback when you purchase a product or service using my links at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I’d recommend to friends, but i’m obligated to inform you that these affiliate links are present. Overall affiliate income is not my focus and is a relatively small part of my income.
In case you’re curious what platform i’m using to run this newsletter, it’s called beehiiv.
Music Marketing Monday
Liked this one? The next issue comes Monday.
Join 18,000+ artists, managers and labels. One practical idea a week, no fluff.
Turn Meta ads into real streaming growth
Learn the campaign structure Andrew uses to promote songs without guessing at every step.
Keep exploring